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Charles
also coined the term "Precisionism", mainly
to denote what he himself did. It indicated
both style and subject. In fact, the subject
was the style: exact, hard, flat, big, industrial,
and full of exchanges with photography. Photography
fed into painting and vice versa. No expressive
strokes of paint. Anything live or organic,
like trees or people, was kept out. There was
no such thing as a Precisionist pussycat.
Sheeler's work records the displacement of the
Natural Sublime by the Industrial Sublime, but
his real subject was the Managerial Sublime,
a thoroughly American notion. And though Precisionism
broadened into an American movement in the late
twenties and early thirties, Sheeler's work
defined its essential scope and meaning.
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